NEW, FUTURE or RETRO: Retro
HOW GOOD IS IT:
When the Sharp CT 660E “Talking Time” was introduced in 1979
it represented a technological breakthrough.
It was based on the first use of LSI (large scale integration) construction as opposed to
the usual method at that time of mounting discrete components to a printed
circuit board. That made it an amazingly
sophisticated product in the consumer marketplace at that time. While there had been electro-mechanical
“talking” devices previously this was the first talking clock to synthesize an
actual human voice. Talking products had
a short-lived popularity in the 1980’s (who can forget your car insisting that
“your door is a jar”) and then for the most part faded away.
